Understanding an eczema outbreak is really complex. And like a child learning language, you have to understand the alphabet and sounds first before you can talk. Same goes for eczema.

To really understand an eczema outbreak, you have to first understand the difference between the way functional medicine and conventional medicine views it.

Why Functional Medicine?

Functional medicine (FM) is a “systems” way of thinking. And when we say “systems,” it’s not like conventional medicine that views the body as a group of isolated systems where you have a cardiologist for the heart, an endocrinologist for hormones, etc. In FM, we view the systems, or areas of the body, as operating as a whole response to the environment (kind of like the operating system of a computer).

It makes perfect sense because each area influences the others.

A good analogy to help you understand functional medicine versus conventional medicine is to think about a tree. Visualize the entire tree with its roots, trunk, branches, and leaves. Conventional medicine looks at one branch, whereas functional medicine views all of the branches, trunk, and roots. It’s going to look at the leaves and even further in-depth because we really want to understand what’s going on in the entire person.

When we do this, we take a really detailed history and look for root causes. It’s interesting that we look for root causes and use the tree analogy, because the goal is to find out what is foundationally disrupted in your body to figure out what’s causing the eczema flare.

Conventional medicine really tends to see eczema as something that doesn’t truly have a cause yet. When I was told that I had eczema the doctor said, “You’ve got eczema. There’s no known cure. See you later.” However, in functional medicine—and now even in the medical literature (check it out here)—they’re starting to talk about it as an autoimmune condition and starting to identify some causes of it. And that’s what we’re going to get into here a little bit later.

This is why taking a FM approach to looking at eczema really can help you get down to why things are happening.

The ATM Model

One of the foundational principles of understanding functional medicine is the concept of antecedents, triggers and mediators. We call it the ATM model. These are how a functional medicine practitioner frames an understanding of your entire life history and contributing factors to your condition. We’re looking at all of that to figure out how you got to where you are today.

Let’s start off with the antecedents, which are the predisposing factors. Those are things like genetics and family history, lifestyle, past illness, and exposures (occupational, home, or environmental), and are the underlying or precipitating cause of illness.

A key point regarding genetics and family history is that they aren’t life sentences. A lot of people think, “Oh, there’s cancer in my family. I’m going to get cancer.” That’s not necessarily the case. There are so many modifiable factors here that can prevent you from actually having that illness even though you might be very prone to having it. Great news!!

To recap: Genetics are largely modifiable. NOT your destiny. **Note, in a future post I’ll address genetic concerns such as the filaggrin protein and common SNPs (single nucleotide polymorphisms) that matter to eczema suffers.

Triggers are what provoke the signs and symptoms of illness. Those are along the lines of infections, allergens, toxins, radiation, surgery, social conditions, and things of that nature. They’re going to combine with the antecedents to actually cause more signs and symptoms.

Last, the mediators perpetuate the illness. You can think about these on a biochemical or psychosocial level. Biochemically speaking, the hormones, neurotransmitters, metabolites, free radicals, and inflammatory chemicals are what perpetuate what’s going on. Once you have that genetic factors, plus the triggers, these mediators keep that cycle going. In the case of eczema, it’s going to cause the flare to continue.

The psychosocial factors—stress, thoughts, beliefs, community- are extraordinarily important in this model, but also in eczema. Stress is often the primary trigger and tipping point for most people (***remember stress can be emotional or physiological like trauma or infection…regardless of the source, it causes systemic biochemical changes that are bad if they continue for a prolonged period of time).

Eczema ATM’s

Genetics, family history, lifestyle, past illness, and environmental exposures are key antecedents for everyone. For example, if you have certain historical factors like a family history of autoimmunity or allergies, asthma, and eczema (the allergic triad) you’re much more likely to get eczema than the rest of the population.

The most common triggers I see in practice are infections, allergens, toxins, diet, and dysbiosis (an imbalance in the microorganisms in your body—not just in your gut, but all over your body). In eczema, skin dysbiosis can be an important piece of the puzzle too.

Depleted Nutrients. In practice it’s usually omega 3 fatty acids, vitamin D, antioxidants such as vitamin C and selenium, and minerals such as zinc and magnesium. Protein malabsorption can be an issue too since you need the amino acids to make collagen and skin tissue.

Inflammatory chemicals. Histamine, cytokines, and free radicals are major contributors here, though there’s a long list of players in this biochemical pool.

Impaired liver function. If you’re liver can’t function optimally, you can’t clear metabolic waste, toxins or hormones efficiently which are essential for a healthy gut and skin. This is often one of the key places we address first.

Leaky gut. This occurs when many of the above factors cause increased intestinal permeability allowing things into the bloodstream (like bacteria, toxins, proteins, etc.) that shouldn’t be there. This causes inflammation and immune system activation driving the eczema cycle.

I find for most of the clients we see in our virtual clinic is that stress is often the most significant factor, either as a trigger or as something that’s perpetuating, or both. We work on addressing it in its many forms, in many different ways.

To recap- if you’re having an eczema flare or a flare-up of any autoimmune condition- you’re looking at: antecedents + the triggers + the mediators= cause of flare.

It’s a cyclical process that self-perpetuates until you identify the triggers and the root causes to stop this cycle. You must eliminate the root cause imbalances such as infections, hormone and nutrient imbalances, allergens, foods, etc., to get this cycle to stop. Then you actually need to take the proper steps to heal it (replacing nutrients, healing leaky gut, balancing hormones, improving liver function, etc.).

Real Life Eczema Example

I’m going to use myself as an example. I’m not necessarily proud of this, but we’re all human 😉

I was driving home from my sister’s this past Halloween. I had just thought to myself that I was so excited because I didn’t have any Halloween candy…. but then I did.

BAD IDEA!

About an hour later, it triggered a flare. And for me, the area where my eczema always, always, always starts is my left wrist and my left hand. They started itching like mad. I was scratching for four hours.

UGH!!!

Immediately, I went downstairs and took some anti-inflammatory nutrients because I knew I had to get at that flare before it became a full-blown outbreak. Yes, it is possible to dampen the effect of a flare once you have your eczema under control.

But for me, I had a major flare. My last major flare was 1.5- 2 years ago. I hadn’t had anything go on since then until I was pregnant recently and had a few minor flares (due to hormones) that went away quickly.

Let’s also review my ATM’s.

My major antecedent is the allergic triad in myself and family members. As I mentioned above, the allergic triad is allergies, asthma and eczema. Most of that manifests in childhood, but not always. I only had allergies in childhood. Eczema started in my 30’s! If you have any of those, you’re also going to be more prone to autoimmunity as an adult.

And, eczema often accompanies other autoimmune conditions, not just in and of itself.

So I have 2 of the allergic triad, and a family history of autoimmunity and inflammation conditions. There’s lots of cardiovascular disease and diabetes in my family. Historically, I was bottle fed and was around smokers growing up which are also key antecedents in developing eczema.

My main trigger for this flare was hormone imbalance and dysbiosis that developed during pregnancy. In the gut, when your hormones such as progesterone are high, it slows things down in pregnancy. It sets the stage for things like leaky gut and dysbiosis to occur. This was something that I had experienced quite a bit of during my pregnancy (even though I tried my hardest to prevent it since I know what I know!!).

Diet was also a key trigger (especially the candy). I kept a clean, organic diet for the most part. However, after the birth, my diet has not been quite as tight. I’m gluten-free and try to be in the realm of Paleo/Autoimmune Paleo. But sometimes I have corn or dairy or beans. And those things have crept into my diet more frequently now that I’ve had the baby.

The candy just happened to be the breaking point for me… that little bit put me over the edge!

My primary mediators were hormone and nutrient imbalances from pregnancy and breastfeeding, leaky gut, and STRESS.

I’m going to reiterate stress here… I’ve got a new baby. I’ve got a 5 year old. I’ve got work. I’ve got life. Everybody’s got stress. But I currently feel like I have a lot on my plate. That’s the main mediator perpetuating the cycle for me.

And for me, stress is probably the number one factor that contributes to my flares every single time. When my stress levels get high, I can get a flare super easily. And I know that’s true for many of the people we work with in the clinic as well.

Another less obvious mediator is lack of sleep. Lack of sleep is a major contributor to manifesting any autoimmune condition, especially something like eczema. We heal and regenerate when we sleep. If you’re not sleeping well, it’s not happening.

Lastly, there’s the issue of support and community, or a lack thereof. When you first have a baby, everyone comes and sees you for the first couple of weeks. And then it’s suddenly, it’s gone. This can leave you with a sense of feeling like you’re lacking community or lacking support. I won’t say that I feel that tremendously, but I feel it a little bit.

All of these things added up and resulted in my eczema flare.

I got it under control by tightening up my diet, doing some keysupplementation, andtopical salves. Thankfully, this prevented it from erupting into a full-blown outbreak.

I’ve always been a questioner. This is why I believe eczema can be healed and reversed (and new science backs this). When I was a little kid, I asked lots of questions because I wanted to know how and why things worked. Conversations I’d frequently have with my parents would go something like this:

Me: “Why does my tummy hurt?””

Parent: “Probably because you just swallowed your gum.”

Me: “Why would gum make my tummy hurt?”

Parent: “When you swallow your gum it can stick to your insides.”

Me: “Why would it stick to my insides?”

Parent (frustrated): “Oh, I don’t know, it just does!”

At this point I usually stopped the dialogue because I was clearly annoying my parents and I was frustrated that I didn’t get the answers I desired. Even as little kid I couldn’t understand why gum wouldn’t be digested like the rest of my food?? It also didn’t make sense to me that it would stick to my insides. There is always a reason why (even if not everyone know the answer).

Those same feelings of frustration and disbelief came to the surface for me when I was told I had Eczema. I was instantly transported back to my childhood when I heard the words “there is no known cause or cure.” It was so infuriating and disheartening.

No cause. No cure. Yet, you’re still miserable, with a very real rash that makes you crazy because you want to keep scratching it incessantly and your doctor hasn’t provided you with any help at all. This is exactly how I felt.

The majority of conventional medicine still clings to the old idea that eczema, also known as atopic dermatitis, is purely a topical rash that makes your skin red and itchy, causes lesions, and is related to allergies.

And if you’ve ever had an eczema breakout you know that this isn’t just something to brush off, or something you should have to live with- it’s a problem that affects the way you look and feel too.

I’ve never accepted the no cause, no cure paradigm- there’s always a reason why something is happening. Your body just doesn’t start to malfunction- it’s way too smart for that. There are complex physiological processes that occur over time that culminate in conditions like eczema. We’ll get into the details of that later.

Those of us in the functional medicine community, as well as many researchers, are redefining what eczema actually is. In December 2014, this groundbreaking study published in The Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology confirmed what many of us suspected all along- that eczema is indeed an autoimmune condition. The study showed that by blocking 2 key proteins involved in the body’s ability to fight off bacteria and viruses, the eczema was reversed. In the process of eczema, these proteins mistakenly target the body’s own tissues, causing an autoimmune reaction which can result in the body attacking the skin. That sounds like a cause to me!

But before we get into the details of how eczema develops as as autoimmune (AI) condition, let’s review what eczema is and briefly discuss the types.

What is Eczema?

As an inquisitive and frustrated kid, I’d reach for the encyclopedia when I got one of those “it just is” answers from an adult. Encyclopedias helped, but were still limited in information on many topics.

Now we have an overabundance of information coming at us 24/7 thanks to the internet, but it’s hard to digest and make sense of it all. So, let’s break eczema down.

Eczema is more commonly referred to as Atopic Dermatitis (AD) clinically. That term is very telling since atopy or atopic is Greek for “being out of place” and dermatitis is “inflammation of the skin”. What’s interesting is that in my graduate training (which was conventional medical clinical pathology) we learned that atopy refers to an allergic reaction or hypersensitivity occurring in a part of the body NOT in contact with the allergen. Based on this definition you’d think that conventional medicine would’ve realized the cause of eczema isn’t occurring on the skin level, but that hasn’t been the case.

Eczema or Atopic Dermatitis (AD) is defined by the Mayo Clinic as “a condition that makes your skin red and itchy. AD is long lasting (chronic) and tends to flare periodically and then subside.” It’s the most common type of eczema and research suggests that a family history of atopic conditions such as eczema, allergies, asthma, and hay fever is a predisposing factor in developing it. The data compiled from my research analyzing over 7,000 patients shows that 1 in 5 people with a family history of eczema have eczema. 20% is significant.

Typical symptoms include:

Itching, which may be mild to severe, especially at night

Raw, sensitive, swollen skin from scratching

Small, raised bumps, which may leak fluid and crust over when scratched

Weeping wounds

Thickened, cracked, dry, scaly skin

Red to brownish-gray patches, especially on the hands, feet, ankles, wrists, neck, upper chest, eyelids, inside the bend of the elbows and knees

Eczema symptoms and appearance differs from person to person. A mild form might look like red, irritated, and slightly speckled skin, to more severe forms where the skin is significantly inflamed, with lesions that are bloody and weeping. Discolorations often occur during the outbreaks and as the skin heals.

7 Types of Eczema (Yes, …there’s actually more than one)

There are many different types of eczema according to various sources. You could go a little crazy researching them all on Dr. Google, so we’ll cover the most common ones here.

Most varieties of eczema are named for where they occur or because they look slightly different than your typical atopic dermatitis. Regardless of where it located or how it looks, it’s still eczema.

Contact Dermatitis occurs when an irritant or allergen contacts the skin causing redness, burning, swelling and sometimes blisters. It can be caused by things such as frequent hand washing, solvents, chemicals, foods, metals, animals, pollen, and plants like poison ivy. For the record, I don’t believe contact dermatitis should be classified with these other forms of eczema as the cause is external contact and can happen to anyone regardless of health conditions and family history. It doesn’t appear to be AI in nature.

Dishydrotic Eczema occurs on the palm side of fingers, palms of hands, bottom of toes, and soles of feet. It presents as red spots, bumps, or blisters. Scaly patches, flaking, and deep cracks can form from damage to the skin. This type is 2 times more common in women. I can vouch for that since this one type that I had in a very classic presentation which makes it easier to distinguish from some of the other types.

Hand Eczema is different from dishydrotic in that it occurs on the back of your hand and fingers, as well as the webbing between fingers. It visually looks more like typical atopic dermatitis.

Neurodermatitis, also called Lichen Simplex Chronicus, which is similar to AD in that there’s significant itching but differs in that the surrounding skin is healthy. It occurs in isolated patches that look thick, discolored, dry, scaly or flaky and can be mistaken for psoriasis. There can be underlying dysfunction of the nerves in this area.

Nummular Eczema, also known as Discoid Eczema is characterized by coin or circular shaped lesions that can be raised. Inflammatory reactions occurring in the body and dry skin are thought to play roles in developing this type of eczema. It can look like ringworm which is a fungal infection so it’s worth ruling that out.

Seborrheic Dermatitis, Scalp Eczema, or Cradle Cap typically occurs in areas where there are high concentrations of oil producing sweat glands including the scalp, face, neck, upper back, shoulders, and chest. Individuals with immune system dysfunction are at increased risk for seborrheic dermatitis. It can have an oily or greasy appearance, unlike the other types of eczema, with white to yellow flakes.

Stasis Eczema/Dermatitis, also called venous stasis dermatitis, is a special type of eczema that occurs in areas where there’s decreased venous blood flow resulting in pressure build up causing fluid leakage from veins. Red, swollen, flaky, itchy skin occurs initially and if not taken care of can progress to ulceration, infection, and/or permanent thickening or scarring of the skin.

What Causes Eczema

If you type in ‘causes of eczema’ in Google, you’ll get a variety of answers like:

Unfortunately, while many of the above are absolutely true, most conventional doctors still treat it like it’s a condition that only occurs on the surface and don’t address most of that list. They’re likely to suggest topical treatments and possibly tell you to avoid a couple of foods, allergens, and hot or cold weather. They neglect the impact of the true root causes beneath the surface.

The worst fact of all is that some doctors are still of the old school thinking that there is no cause or cure for eczema.

Thankfully, research is evolving and know we know otherwise.

Given that eczema is now considered an autoimmune condition, we know the conditions need to be ‘just right’ for one to manifest.

These are the 3 key factors that come together to initiate autoimmunity:

A genetic predisposition/family history

Intestinal permeability (leaky gut)

Environmental triggers such as stress, infection, gut or skin dysbiosis (imbalance between the good and bad bugs), food sensitivities or allergies, trauma, hormone imbalances, toxins, and nutrient imbalances.

With autoimmunity, the immune system mistakenly targets a body tissue and tries to attack it like it’s a foreign invader. If you have eczema, this means that the autoimmune process is attacking your skin. And to get rid of eczema, you need to address each of your root causes, which are covered in numbers 2 and 3 above.

For me, the perfect storm for eczema flares was high stress levels, hormone imbalances, GI infections and dysbiosis, leaky gut, and food sensitivities. Histamine containing foods, exercise, and hot showers made it even worse. This scenario is very similar for most of my clients as well.

A New Paradigm for Eczema

Just like when I was a kid, I wasn’t satisfied with the explanation of what causes eczema, so I developed my own process to explain the cycle of how it occurs.

Stage 1: Flare Up

You know when a flare up is coming because your body send you little signals in the form of tingle, slight itchiness or a burning sensation. On the inside the panic begins to set in and you’re thinking, “Oh no, not again!” These are the subtle hints that you’re body is unhappy and it’s trying to tell you. The flames have been stoked and a fire is beginning to burn inside.

From a physiological standpoint, your immune system is activated from one or more triggers like foods, chemicals, toxins, or microorganisms (bacteria, fungi, parasites, viruses) and has begun attacking your body tissues. Having a genetic predisposition toward eczema or autoimmunity, and a leaky gut make this the perfect storm.

At this point, trying to stop or slow the flare is a good idea as it will help begin to reverse the inflammatory process. Start with your diet as many significant triggers for eczema are food related. At a minimum go gluten and dairy free, but likely you’ll find other foods that need to be avoided while you heal.

Getting stress under control right now is key as it’s often what pushes you over the edge into a flare. It’s hard to eliminate it, but try to manage stressors by maintaining boundaries, saying no, or asking for help. If you can completely eliminate a stressor (like avoiding a toxic person or situation) even better! Also, finding an outlet like journaling, deep breathing, meditation, or walks in nature can profoundly reduce the stress response.

Stage 2: Outbreak

Your flare up transitions to a full blown outbreak when the tingle, burn or minor itch escalates to constant itching causing red, inflamed skin with welts, wounds, and/or blisters. At this point it can appear to be treatment resistant since all of the root causes likely haven’t been addressed.

The outbreak occurs when the inflammatory process mediated by the immune system goes unchecked. The inflammatory chemicals have kicked up and are peaking resulting in your extreme discomfort and many symptoms. During this phase eczema can interfere with life, making social gatherings, work, sleep, and sanity difficult due to the incessant itching. There’s a full blown inflammatory fire raging inside.

Getting to the bottom of all of your triggers and root causes is essential now so you can heal. Addressing diet and stress may do the trick for some, but others may require deeper digging or testing which is easiest with assistance of a trained professional. Even though I do this for a living, I call upon my friends and colleagues to make sure I’m not missing anything. We can all use some help now and then!

If you haven’t begun dialing in your diet- there isn’t a better time. You need to focus on taming the fire burning within. Anti-inflammatory supplements and foods are super important now. This blog article I wrote provides a recipe, as well as 6 healing foods and supplements to help put out the flames.

Topically, some people may benefit simply from coconut oil, but I personally didn’t and many of my patients echo that sentiment. The same can be said of shea butter. However, by combining these an easy and wonderful healing salve can be made.

Eczema Healing Salve Recipe

½ cup unrefined, organic coconut oil

½ cup unrefined, organic shea butter

10 drops calendula essential oil

10 drops yarrow essential oil

10 drops rosemary essential oil

5-10 drops frankincense essential oil

Mix these together in a bowl by hand or with a mixer. It will be hard and clumpy at first, but eventually will soften and everything will come together. Note: you can play with the essential oils as some people respond better to certain ones than others. If you can’t some of these, that’s fine too. These all have healing, calming or anti-inflammatory properties.

The most important thing to remember in the outbreak phase is the root causes. If you don’t identify and address them all, your eczema is likely to return at some point.

Stage 3: Healing

Relief is in sight! This is when you start to feel better and symptoms are less severe, but still present. You may or may not be itchy. Your skin still shows signs of irritation, but no open wounds and blisters. It may also appear thick, leathery, scaly, dark, or ashy now. The fire within is now just smoldering embers.

Your immune system is now ramping down and under control, but in physiological time things go slow which is why there are still visible signs (think of how long it takes to completely heal a cut or broken bone).

Steering clear of dietary triggers or any other triggers you’ve identified through self investigation or testing is still a must to maintain healing. Continue use of natural topicals to protect the skin and help rebuild integrity. Nutrients like vitamins A,C, D, and E, biotin, zinc, selenium, and collagen support healing and skin structure.

Stage 4: Clear Skin

Hooray!! When you’re suffering through an eczema flare you often don’t think this day will come, but it is possible to completely reverse eczema and have clear skin again. You’re skin is fully healed and looks great again. No more hiding in long sleeves or gloves!

Think of this stage as maintenance or dormancy. You immune system is finally calmed down and balanced so the attack on skin is over. The fire is out completely!

Maintaining a healthy diet, stress levels, and getting adequate sleep will help keep you here in your happy place.

Common Treatments for Eczema

Again, if you look eczema treatments up in Google, you’ll get a list that looks like this:

While the medications may be helpful at first for managing symptoms, they don’t address the root causes and the eczema returns. Long term, the topical creams can damage the integrity of the skin and the topical steroids and oral medications shut off the body’s natural inflammatory response which is counterproductive to healing the body.

The moisturizers typically suggested sometimes work and other times cause more irritation due to the ingredients. Unfortunately, if they do work it’s only addressing issues at the skin level and not what’s beneath the surface.

Special baths can definitely be helpful in managing symptoms, but some need to be use with caution. I am personally not a fan of the bleach baths, ever. Sea salt, table salt and apple cider vinegar can be great, however should be tested first since they could irritate open wounds. Oatmeal baths are also very soothing as long as you know you don’t have Celiac or it’s skin variant called Dermatitis Herpetiformis. If you do, you should probably avoid oatmeal completely as it’s often contaminated with gluten.

Phototherapy from the sun is my preferred use. While using phototherapy lamps that emit UV light definitely have benefit, there are a few more risks associated with them due to broader spectrum of the light rays, such a burning, blistering, accelerated aging/breakdown of the skin, and skin cancer. More recently narrow band UVB therapy, which uses a smaller spectrum and thus less radiation, is a better option for artificial light therapy.

Wet dressings can be very helpful in healing eczema when used with natural moisturizers. However, topical corticosteroids are often used and I believe they’re a bad long term strategy for the reasons given above.

My Methodology for Healing Eczema

While some of the commonly used treatments listed above can be helpful at soothing or even resolving some symptoms, they’re all missing the most important factor: addressing the ROOT CAUSES.

Even if you’re in remission and asymptomatic, you’re still at risk for a flare up because you haven’t addressed the important factors lingering beneath the surface. You’re trigger might be work, family, or financial stress, a stomach virus or infection, passing of a loved one or pet, a divorce or separation, moving to a new town or job, or even injuring yourself exercising.

My major trigger was always work related stress (or not addressing it) as it is for so many that suffer from eczema.

The good news is that I healed my eczema and we, together, can heal yours too.

My process starts with a detailed history, from birth until now, that identifies all of the contributing factors to your eczema and what potential root causes need to be investigated.

Next we order the appropriate tests to identify your specific and individual underlying causes.

From there, I design a comprehensive program based on your results and history that addresses all of your root causes in a systematic way. We don’t throw the kitchen sink at you all at once and hope it works. Instead, the plan is outlined in a step-by-step manner that makes it easy for you to follow and allows your body to heal.

If you’re tired of living in the eczema cycle of remissions and flare ups, or have an active, raging outbreak that itches so bad and looks so horrible it’s affecting every aspect of your life and you don’t think it will ever end, I invite you to work with me and my team to heal your eczema for good.

We’ll work together to put the pieces of your health puzzle in place. We’ll guide you at every step with a plan of action to get your body healing and skin happy again.